


cultural differences

by viscrael



Series: trans girl pidge hc [5]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (hes trans in this also), Alien Cultural Differences, Coran Coran The Transgender Man, Gen, Trans Female Character, Trans Female Pidge | Katie Holt, theyre at a party and allura talks to pidge abt Trans Things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 13:56:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11556609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viscrael/pseuds/viscrael
Summary: “Oh, it’s not that,” Allura assures. “It’s only that I asked Shiro about it later, because I was...confused, mostly.”“Confused? About what?”“Why you tried to hide your identity from us,” she says.





	cultural differences

**Author's Note:**

> back at it again w the trans girl pidge wassup !!! its 4 am, im on vacation in niagra falls, and im mostly definitely supposed to be asleep and Not Writing vld fic rn . and yet. here i continue to be.
> 
> this is the first thing ive written in like ,, a week afjadkfj i feel so BAd but. at least i spit this out. have some allura n pidge (budding) friendship :')

“Are you enjoying the party?”

Allura asks it with such a forced smile that Pidge knows she’s trying desperately to make small talk. Pidge leans with her arms crossed against the railing, her ankles crossed where she stands looking over the balcony at the partygoers below. Humanoid aliens of all sizes and colors mingle, dressed in what Pidge can only assume is their traditional ballroom clothing. Between them she can make out Lance and Hunk surrounded by a group, Lance animatedly narrating a story while Hunk offers nervous but genuine smiles. She can see Lance saying  _ you should’ve been there _ before raising a glass to his lips with one hand and shooting finger guns at someone with the other.

“I guess.” Pidge shrugs. The dress she’s wearing is beautiful and comfortable to boot, waves of green draping down to the floor, the fabric reminiscent of silk but breathable as if made for physical activity. Considering how the gladiator is set at a level for an Altean child, she figures it probably  _ was  _ made for that.

Allura nods, clasping her hands in front of her. She’s wearing something similar to Pidge only in white, her hair piled in a braid at the top of her head. “The Autsuabb were very kind to put this on for us in such short notice.”

“Mhmm,” Pidge agrees.

“They did a wonderful job considering the resources right now, too. Although, I would hate for them to bleed themselves dry only to show their gratitude to Voltron. They’re still recovering from the Galran attacks, after all.”

“Yeah.”

Allura doesn’t say anything to that. When Pidge glances to look at her, her lips are pursed, her silver eyebrows knitted as if she’s debating something. The tips of her ears twitch slightly when she makes eye contact with Pidge, and Pidge looks away hurriedly. 

“I’m sorry, Princess,” Pidge says, taking her arms off the railing. “I’m just...not all that interested in the party. Not trying to blow you off or anything, but…”

“No, no,” Allura waves her off. “I understand. I actually had something I came up here to discuss with you. I only wanted to avoid jumping straight to that and seeming...rude.” She seems unsure if the last word is the one she wants or not, the syllable rolling off her tongue hesitantly. 

Pidge frowns. She can feel a knot of anxiety starting to form in her stomach;  _ discussing things  _ never sounds good. If she were wearing her glasses, she’d push them up on her nose here. “What’d you want to talk about?” she asks skeptically.

“Well…it’s about…” Allura pauses. “You are a girl.”

“...Yes?”

“And…I knew this before you told us as a group.”

“Yeah, you told me that already.”

“Well, I just wanted to…” Another pause. She brushes a loose strand of hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear gently. They twitch again. The ears are probably the most obvious difference between Coran and Allura and the paladins, Pidge has found. Alteans’ ears seem to move with their emotions, if only slightly. Coran’s are more expressive than Allura’s, but hers still twitch when she’s thinking or unsure. The one time Pidge saw her pissed off, her ears were flattened. She hasn’t seen them like that again, though.

“If it’s to apologize or something, it’s fine, don’t even worry about it,” Pidge says. For the most part the team has put that experience behind them, accepting it as it is. But after what Lance admitted the other day, she doesn’t think she could handle  _ Allura _ trying to “make up” for something, too. It’s not like Pidge didn’t enjoy spending time with Lance the way they had, it’s just — she doesn’t like feeling like this. Like it’s a big deal. Or like it’s something the others need to feel “bad” about.

“Oh, it’s not that,” Allura assures. She moves so she’s standing next to Pidge, looking over the railing. “It’s only that I asked Shiro about it later, because I was...confused, mostly.”

“Confused? About what?”

“Why you tried to hide your identity from us,” she says. “It is not the same with Alteans. I told you before, we’re a shapeshifting people, so things like this are not as big of a deal as Shiro said it is with humans. Most Altean children do not find out their gender until quite a while after they’re born, and even then it’s not rare to realize you were mistaken. It’s not seen as a reason for shame, either. Coran was mistaken for a woman for the first eleven years of  _ his  _ life before he discovered he was male, but he had never tried to hide that from anyone.” 

Pidge blinked. “Coran is trans?”

“‘Trans’?”

“Oh, um, transgender. It’s just the shortened version of the word.”

Allura smiles widely. “Oh, right! Shiro told me that’s what you call it. Yes, in Earth terms, I guess you would consider Coran transgender. We don’t have an equivalent word for it in Altean, though.”

“So you just sort of...accept everything as it comes?”

“Of course. It seems silly to me to do it any other way.”

Pidge nods. She turns back to look down at the ballroom below. “Yeah. It  _ is  _ pretty ‘silly’. Shiro must have told you how it’s not like that on Earth, then?”

“He told me, but he also mentioned that you would have a more in-depth understanding of it, as you’ve experienced it first-hand.” 

She glances at Allura from the corner of her eye. The princess is turned to watch the crowd below, too, her hands placed delicately on the railing. Her fingers curved around the banister, her nails painted a shimmering pink that matches the markings on her cheekbones. With loose hair framing her face and her dress cascading down her figure like a waterfall, she looks beautiful; even with how attractive the Autsuabb people naturally seem to be, she’s still the most gorgeous person in the room.

Pidge wonders somewhere in the back of her brain if she could ever look like that, but she knows it’s a dumb thing to think about. That doesn’t matter out here. Her duty right now isn’t to look pretty, it’s to save the universe — but some selfish part of herself still remembers what it was like back home, right after she came out. How she overdressed herself trying desperately to find the approval of others; how she envied her neighbor Katie, how she almost worshipped her and her stylish clothes and always-perfect hair. How she felt so  _ good _ , euphoric almost, when she tried on a skirt for the first time — and how her heart leapt in her throat and her stomach did happy somersaults when her mother pressed a twenty dollar bill into her hand and told her to buy the skirt she wanted so badly. How confident she was when her hair finally started growing out, when she could finally put it into a ponytail. How anxious she’d been to cut it. How devastated she’d been to realize she wouldn’t get to wear a dress again once she entered the Garrison. 

This celebration is the first time since before the Kerberos mission that Pidge has had the opportunity to actually “dress up.” When she cut her hair the morning of her first day of class, she’d used a shitty, cheap pair of scissors, but it hadn’t mattered with how the ends curled up like Matt’s so she hadn’t thought about it — but her hair is straightened now, courtesy of Lance and his insistence that she utilize the limited Altean beauty products Allura has to offer. She feels awkward with her choppy, self-given haircut on display, and the lack of glasses makes her feel naked, regardless of the fact that she never needed them to see in the first place. She should be happy that she’s dressing up, that she’s getting to  _ feel  _ this way again. But, especially in light of Allura’s inherent beauty, it’s hard to feel anything but out of place. 

Pidge — Katie — has never liked parties, after all.

“People suck,” Pidge says in answer. “Humans are always looking for a group to pick on. I don’t know how it is with Alteans, but there’s always been injustice and inequality and whatever based on arbitrary, stupid things. One of them is gender.” 

Allura nods. “I’m sorry you’ve had to live that way.”

“You don’t have to apologize. It’s not your fault.”

“Still.” She offers a gentle smile. “You did not deserve to be afraid to tell us who you are. You should never have to feel that way.”

The two of them have not been close. They haven’t had the  _ chance  _ to be, between piloting Voltron and fighting Zarkon’s empire and trying just to stay alive. But for a second, Pidge feels a little bit closer to her. The memory of her neighbor Katie flashes through her mind, stylish and beautiful and strong and everything Pidge wanted to be, and then Allura returns, wearing that same smile. 

“Thank you,” Pidge says finally.

“Of course.” Allura looks down at Lance and Hunk again, her eyes following the two paladins as they continue their discussion with the small Autsuabb crowd. They’re both dressed up, too, in blue and yellow suits that fit them perfectly. Hunk seems to have joined in with Lance in retelling their battle stories with much more vigor. “I suppose I should return to the party now, then.”

“Be safe down there.”

“I will try,” she laughs, and heads towards the stairs. She stops just before her descent. “And Pidge?”

“Yeah?”

“Do not be afraid to come join us,” she says. “I’d love to have a conversation with you in a less serious atmosphere, if you’re ever willing.”

“Uh, sure.” Pidge nods. “I’ll…take you up on that.”

Allura smiles one last time before rejoining the other paladins on the lower level. Pidge leans with her elbows on the railing and continues watching them from the balcony. 

When she brushes a piece of hair behind her ear, the sting of the awkward length is softer, just a little. 


End file.
